Overwrite
by drano
Summary: What could possibly go wrong on the movie set of Evangelion? But then again, what could possibly go right? Supposedly humorous.
1. Part One: Cut

**Overwrite**

**--  
**

"_I knew it_!" Shinji thought in despair, "_I'm not needed after all._"

Shinji turned and saw Rei, the girl they'd just brought into Unit 1's berth on a gurney. She was the girl that they were going to put into Unit 1 because Shinji wouldn't. But how could he? He had only just been introduced to this robot not ten minutes ago.

Rei was heavily bandaged.

The sad music began playing.

Rei tried to pull herself up, whimpering with pain and breathing in deep shudders.

Shinji stared at her.

"_Close up shot ... closer ... get the eyes ... closer ..."_

The music changed and there was a loud crash, presumably from the Angel aboveground. The ground shook and Rei was thrown off the gurney with a shriek. She tried to pull herself back up, but fell back down in a heap of moans. Blood began to leak from her bandages.

"Get up, Rei!" one of the medical assistants grabbed her by the arm and tried to drag her up, "The fate of the world is on your shoulders!"

"I—" Rei gave one last trembling gasp and then collapsed completely, her head lolling.

Shinji made an involuntary sound, still staring in horror.

"We're losing her!" one of the medical assistants said as a shrill and steady beep came from one of the machines attached to Rei.

"What!" Gendo Ikari shouted as he raced to her. He grabbed the defibrillator unit away from the medics. "Stand back! The fate of everything is resting on this one girl—there is no one else who can do it!"

He spared a brief but significant glance at Shinji.

"Wa—Wait—" Shinji took a step forward, weakly raising his arm.

"Clear!" Gendo shouted, pressing the pads to Rei's chest. Her limp body jerked violently and then fell back to the ground and was still again.

"We're still losing her!" one of the medics desperately shouted.

The sad music began a more desperate chord, violins-heavy.

"Wait!" Shinji shouted, but no one was listening to him. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes.

"Crank it up!" Gendo commanded, feverishly rubbing the pads together over his head.

"But we're already past the safety limits!" one of the medics exclaimed, "Any more will—"

"Do it!" Gendo shouted, "If she dies, we all—"

"Wait!" Shinji screamed, "Stop it! Stop all of it! Now!"

Gendo looked up at him in disgust.

--

_"Cut! Cut! Cut!"_

The set bell rang and people began moving wearily.

Anno leapt up from the director's chair. "Shinji, what do you think you're doing?"

"I can't do it! I just can't do it!" Shinji clenched his fists. "This scene is ridiculous! This wasn't in the script before."

"Well, it's in the script now, isn't it, hedgehog Boy?" Asuka shot back from where she was standing to one side of the set with a mocha and a pair of crossed arms, "Why don't you just deal with it?"

"Hey! You stay out of this!" Shinji exclaimed, "You're not even going to show up for another eight episodes, so just—just—"

Gendo grunted as he walked off the set. "I need a smoke."

"There he goes," Anno clapped loudly, though no one joined him, "A wonderful human being. Great work, Gendo, great work."

Gendo grunted.

"But if we could," Anno added hesitantly, "Maybe we could make this scene just a little bit ... harsher? You know, give it an edge. Could you—tone up on the coldness ... just a little bit?"

"I'll see what I can do," Gendo said noncommittally.

"That's all we can ask for," Anno clapped again, calling after him, "A wonderful human being, Gendo. You're a wonderful human being."

Rei sat up, looking around blearily. "What is the problem?"

"Ugh!" Asuka groaned as she forcibly disposed of her mocha cup, "Maybe if you didn't get so in character and black out all the time you would know what's the problem, Wonder Girl."

"Hey, leave her alone," Shinji protested, "Maybe if the script hadn't been changed to include these ridiculous ... whatever these things are called—" he kicked at the defibrillator pads, "She wouldn't have to pass out! Why do we have to use real electricity anyway?"

Anno squared himself. "Art is pain. In order to create true art, you must experience—"

"Ugh, not this shtick again," Asuka groaned again, "What do you care about caring anyway, Third Child? That's the whole point to your character, you care about other people. Haven't you figured that out yet? You might be totally spineless, cowardly, not much to look at—downright ugly, actually ... not all that bright, definitely a unique brand of pathetic, and ... but you're still ... wait, what were we talking about again?"

"You see?" Shinji shouted and pointed at her. "How am I supposed to fake warm and humane feelings when _she's_ around? She's not even in this part of the series!"

Anno grimaced. "We all agreed that you needed more character practice at facing your fears, and that if we started early enough in the series, we might actually—"

"_You mustn't run away, you mustn't run away_," Asuka mocked in a baby voice.

"Argh! I'M NOT GOING TO RUN AWAY!" Shinji screamed, then stopped. " ... But I am going to call my agent, I just can't work like this!" He took out his phone and hit a predial.

Dr. Ritsuko sighed. "There he goes again. Ugh ... I need a donut."

Misato crossed her arms. "Don't you mean a Long John ... or maybe a real man?"

Ritsuko screamed and tackled her to the ground, clawing at her face, "That's it! We're supposed to be FRIENDS in this part of the series!"

Anno wearily raised his loudspeaker, "Clean up on Set-Right."

"Humph," Asuka smartly spun away from the two women clawing at each other, "So unprofessional. I don't know who's worse, them or emo-boy."

"Hey!" Shinji pulled his ear away from his phone, "I was an emo-boy before they even knew what emo was! I MADE EMO! Wait—" he turned back to his phone, "... Chuck? Chuck, you still there? No, I can't do this anymore—my trailer doesn't even have a slushy machine!"

"How pathetic," Asuka shook her head, "He's such an absolute dummkopf."

"And yet," Rei said quietly, "You find yourself madly attracted to him and unable to resist hot, steamy, unbridled and not-PG-13 thoughts about him."

"That's ridiculous!" Asuka whirled on her. "Don't go all Freud on me, doll head, I don't like the little worm in the slightest!"

"Then why did you kiss him in episode 15?" Rei asked, somewhere near the opposite of emotionally charged.

"It's called acting!"

Rei looked away quietly, maybe almost sadly. "If only you two would admit that you have the hots for each other ..."

"Oh, yeah! Emo-boy has the hots for me, all right!" Asuka shouted, a bit unstably, "Kinda like at the very end of the series, oh how romantic it is to get strangled, not once, oh, no! But TWICE! It's kinda like we just let bygones be bygones by shaking hands—or should I say necks! Oh," her hysteria went prim, "And just how romantic would it be if we then went on to make mad hot, underaged sex on the beach surrounded by oceans of blood and being watched by a giant, dismembered head that just happens to be, of all people, YOU!"

Rei paused.

"Would you do it if the head wasn't there?"

"AGH! It's just acting!" Asuka shot back. "Ever heard of it? I suppose when you've got a mental lexicon of just four words that consist of _bland_, _depressed_, _introverted_ and _suicidal_, there's not much room for anything else!"

Rei stared back at her. There were more shrieks and limbs behind them as the cleanup crew tried to disentangle Misato and Ritsuko.

"Don't worry ... I forgive you," Rei said.

"What the heck for?" Asuka demanded, her face approaching a shade somewhere near livid red.

"For being jealous of me and my superior fan base," Rei answered.

Asuka gave a shriek of her own and jumped at Rei—Rei's throat. "_TAKE THAT BACK YOU LIFELESS EXCUSE FOR A MANNEQUIN!"_

Anno put his head in his hands. "Clean up on Set-Left, priority left."

They grappled as they fell to the ground. Rei held Asuka's wrists, her face blank as she continued. "Jealous of my more varied and sought after merchandise—"

"I've got just as much merchandise as you do!" Asuka panted as she tried to push past Rei's arms, "I've got key chains! I've got stickers! I've got miniature doll—uh, doll-_like_ things ... that are, ugh!—better looking than yours because—I've got the fuller figure!"

"—Jealous of my more dedicated fandoms—" Rei continued, not heeding her.

"Dedicated fandoms of perverted pre-pubescent boys that prefer docile anime girls just so they can fantasize better!" Asuka screamed. "Where did Shinji put those gol darned shock pads? I'll show you acting you soulless, willynacking female variety of a dog—"

She abruptly detached herself from Rei and sank back on her knees, weeping passionately. "Why does this have to be a K+ fanfiction? How am I suppose to express all of my teenage angst without swearing? It's impossible!"

_Voice from heaven:_ _Because I have decreed it._

"But why?" Asuka wailed.

_Voice from heaven: Because more family friendly ratings encourages more readers, and more readers encourages more reviews, and more reviews creates more happiness for me, and more happiness—_

"Oh, shut up!" Misato groaned from underneath Ritsuko's elbow. "If you can't find happiness playing Dungeons and Dragons in your mother's basement for the rest of your life and making out with Asuka dolls, then I don't think getting written feedback from other people just like you is going to do it!"

"Yeah, why does he get to write us?" Asuka whined to Anno. "What does he know about Evangelion anyway? He's only seen the series through once, and—And he's not depressed _or_ suicidal—he's not even Japanese!" She paused at Anno's expression. "Not that you're depressed ... anymore ... I think ..."

Anno sobbed into his hands. "My therapist says I'm making progress!"

"Why _do_ you get to write us?" Misato shouted up at the ceiling.

_Because I am God._

"Aw, SHUT UP!" the cast shouted back.

_*poking heavenly stick in dirt_* _Okay ..._

"Well," Anno sighed as he sniffed and stood back up. "Are we ready to get started again?"

Everyone looked at each other, then back at Shinji, who was still on the phone in the corner.

"—no, No, NO Chuck! A slushy machine is meaningless if there's no Hawaiian Carrot—I just won't do it!"

There was a general shout and then general chaos as everyone around Anno threw themselves at each other.

Anno slumped back down in his chair. "All I wanted to do was a shameless remake of a series about pain, depression, and mercilessly tearing characters apart—for just a little more money. Why can't they just understand that?"

A barbarian human sacrifice chant rose from one end of the set as the second shift of NERV extras arrived.

Anno looked up towards heaven. "Can't you _do_ anything?"

_Heavenly voice: What are you looking at me for? It's not like I've got the Script of Longinus._

"But wait ..." Anno gave a deathly whisper as he stared around in horror, "Then who does?"

--

Gendo leaned back in his chair as he stared down at the script open on his desk, the images of the cast and crew tearing themselves apart flickering on the pages. They echoed with the sounds of a few muted gunshots.

"They're such complete fools ... especially that worthless son of mine," he murmured, then grinned, "Just how I like them!"

He kicked his feet up on his desk and took a sip from his Hawaiian Carrot slushy, groaning contently.

"Now let's see here," he said as he casually thumbed through the script, "Let's see if we can do some proofreading ... Oh, what's this? I have a character motivation in the End of Evangelion movie for being such a complete and utter jerk throughout the entire series?"

He pulled his feet back to the ground, absently reaching for his Shinji stress ball as he leaned over the glowing pages.

"Well, we can fix that ..."

--

**AN:** Thanks for reading. As the stooping to ALL CAPS and the like might indicate, this isn't a completely not serious effort, so any mistakes shouldn't be taken very seriously. As Asuka said, I've only seen the series through twice (though I am going to rate this T just in case).

On the outside chance that anyone really likes this, I would like to say that there will be more (there's a low % that there will be), but no promises. So it's probably just best to assume there won't be. Still, this was fun to write, and it's definitely a Potentially Perpetual Plot (PPP). Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it.


	2. Part Two: Plot Closet

**Plot Closet  
**

--

"Oh, boy!" Kensuke shouted as he skipped alongside Toji onto the set. "I even heard that there were guns!"

"Yeah, yeah," Toji muttered, sounding bored. "Hey, there's Shinji ... and Beelzebub."

"Hey, Shinji," Kensuke shouted as he raced up to where he and Asuka were sitting, "Is it true? Is it? Did a fight really break out?"

"What does it look like, twerp?" Asuka muttered as she readjusted the ice pack she was holding to one eye.

"Yeah," Shinji said quietly, "It was pretty bad."

"I even heard that some people got killed!" Kensuke burst out.

Asuka examined something on one of her hands. "Yeah ... there were three—extras I think. No big deal though, it wasn't like it was anyone important. Plot-wise, anyway."

Even Kensuke paused for a moment as everyone around them stopped and stared at her. Asuka continued looking at her hand for a handful of heartbeats until the silence caught her attention. She looked up, her face fighting off embarrassment.

"What?" she demanded, looking around. "That's why they're called _extras_. They're replaceable."

One of the younger girls in a Nerv uniform burst out crying, but some of the other men in uniform just nodded glumly as they pulled her along and the set began moving again.

"I just wish I hadn't missed it!" Kensuke said from behind his camcorder as he began spinning around to zoom in on the most visible signs. "Can you at least show me where the best of the action happened?"

"You mean where they died?" Shinji asked, sounding as though he was trying to decide what degree of horrified to employ.

"Over that way, nerd face," Asuka pointed with a bored voice. "And take your jock strap with you."

"All right!" Kensuke exclaimed, "You can still see the blood! Come on!"

"But isn't that sort of ..." Toji began uncertainly, "Unethical—"

But Kensuke jerked his arm and consequently the rest of him out of contemplations about annoying little things like that. Asuka watched them go with a disgusted expression before losing interest in maintaining the effort.

"I'm sooo bored," she groaned. "At this rate we'll never get to my episodes."  
"Then why don't you just go?" Shinji asked, wincing as he dabbed a cotton swab of alcohol against his skinned elbow.

"Why don't you just mind your own business?" Asuka shot back, and then grabbed the swab out of his hands. "And if you're going to do it, do it right! I swear, you have to be such a baby about everything—"

She leaned forward to do it, but her head inadvertently also had to come closer to Shinji's elbow, which happened to be connected in a roundabout way to Shinji's face and—

other things, which in due sum brought her face to a remotely closer proximity to his face—

which meant that they both paused—

which of course, due in no small part to raging teenage hormones, necessitated staring deeply into each others' eyes—

which caused fragile breaths to stutter and young hearts to quicken as—

There was the barest hint of a third person breathing.

Shinji and Asuka both turned to find Rei sitting next to them. Observing. Emotionlessly.

They both stared at her wide eyed for a long moment. Rei eventually moved back a little.

"Just ... pretend I'm not here," she said quietly, giving a small nudging gesture.

"And how in the bloody devil is that possible?" Asuka demanded angrily.

"Anything is possible in fanfiction," Rei pointed out, "Now ... back to the—"

"—Back to the nothing!" Asuka said, "There is absolutely nothing going on between us, so why don't you just drop it already?"

"Yeah," Shinji agreed, "And it's ... sort of creepy just to think about it."

"Oh, so now I'm creepy, huh?" Asuka whirled on him. "Well—that's just—just wonderful coming from you two! Especially with the—the—the thing you two have going on!"

"Huh?" Shinji asked weakly.

"Oh, please!" Asuka snapped. "Don't think just because they're completely unimportant that I haven't seen these first few episodes of you two—you two all over each other! Acting, ha! Mein Esel."

"But—but—" Shinji stammered, "I thought you didn't watch any episodes you weren't in, on general principal—"

"Yeah, I just bet that was what you were hoping," Asuka crossed her arms and looked away, "I just happened to be surfing through the late night channels the other day and just _happened _to see episode five. Ha! It was even worse than most of the stuff on the other channels."

"But it's only for amusement," Shinji tried a nervous chuckle as he looked around at the growing audience of crew members that Asuka's raised voice was attracting, "Just a little fan service. It doesn't mean anything seri—"

"Oh, give me a break!" Asuka exclaimed, "It has a naked teenage girl, it has prolonged groping, it has airborne feminine undergarments, and it has YOU on top of HER for TWENTY-SEVEN SOLID SECONDS!"

Shinji jerked his head back from the surprised faces that were multiplying around them and stared at her weakly.

"You ... timed it?"

"That's right!" Asuka shouted as she advanced on him with a jabbing finger, "And even in the crappiest animes there's no way twenty-seven seconds can be justified with ordinary fan service, oh no!"

There were low voices and whispers running around the circle that was tightening around them. Shinji's eyes were frantically trying to take all of this in—everything but the closing finger and furious pair of eyes that began to push him further and further into the ground.

"Asuka—people—" he mumbled in panic, "Watching—closing in—I—"

"—pathetic kind of perverted!" Asuka finished with a flourish, breathing hard as she stared down at Shinji, who'd retreated to the ground with his arms around his knees. She groaned at this and turned to where Rei was still watching. "You see? It's absolutely ridiculous! Me and him, ha! If anything, hedgehog boy has the hots for you. The only scene with us that comes close is—oh yeah," she said sarcastically, "The one where he tries to strangle me. And don't even bring up the whole kissing scene, because it was because I was bored, that's all. You and emo kid get way closer to anything resembling real action than we do."

The crowd began to murmur with hints of agreement. Shinji continued to mutter incoherently to himself from the floor.

There was a long pause.

"But what about the deleted scene from episode ten?" Rei asked quietly.

"Huh?" Shinji perked up, looking horrified.

"Episode ten? What deleted scene?" Asuka frowned.

"Deleted scenes don't count!" Shinji said, waving his arms in the air.

"The deleted scene—" Rei began.

"That's why they're _de-le-ted_!" Shinji struggled up to his knees.

"—is after Shinji observes your back roll entry into the swimming pool. He goes into a lengthy and graphic fantasy involving both of you practicing a non swimming related variant of that phrase—"

"WHAT!" Asuka screeched. And exploded. She actually kind of screeched and exploded. It was a screechy sort of explosion.

"It was cut! It was cut! It wasn't filmed!" Shinji protested. "The back rear entry—no! I mean the back _roll_ entry scene was—"

But no one was listening to him as Rei clinically continued to go on about the details and Asuka ranted at unhealthy volumes about not being informed about unfilmed contract violations.

The people that weren't speechless were all engaging in some form of expressing humor.

"So—humiliating—" Shinji murmured as he curled up into a fetal position on the ground and began rocking back and forth, "People—watching—mommy—"

The rest was lost behind his thumb.

--

Moving—the hallway was moving—moving past him as he was dragged down it, arm—burning arm first. The routinely placed hallway lights were passing above him and the sound of his failing lungs—everything was hot and every part of his body that required oxygen felt as if it were dying noisily and—

"Asuka!—" Shinji gasped, "Slow down! Please? I can't—can't—"

Asuka barely bothered briefly glancing back from the other end of his arm that she was forcibly transiting. "Quite your whining! I swear if you pass out before we get to the elevators, I'll kill you myself! Because I'm not carrying you! Don't you _pay_ your personal trainer?"

"I—He—" Shinji wheezed, and then all in one breath, "—The-script-describes-me-as-weak-and-pathetic," *_gasp_* "So—"

"Mission accomplished," Asuka muttered as they reached an intersection in the hallway and she skidded to an abrupt halt.

Shinji, however, dutifully followed Newton's first law and continued on past her and then to the ground after his lower limbs failed to produce the proper placement of friction. He tumbled, skidded, and then softly rolled to a stop on his back, where he lay heavily harvesting oxygen.

"Stunt double ..." he weakly murmured between lung compressions.

Asuka, however, didn't pay him any attention as she stood in the middle of the intersection, softly catching her breath and frowning down the rightmost pair of corridors.

"Okay, Wonder Girl," she said without turning to face their third companion who was calmly standing behind them, "This is the part where you justify me letting you tag along. Which way is it?"

"Where—" Shinji raised his head up blearily, "Where are we going?"

Asuka rolled her eyes wearily. "I already told you, dummkopf."

"No," Shinji said, succeeding somewhat in weakly dragging himself up, "You suddenly grabbed me, told me we had to go now, hit me when I asked where, and then dragged me and what's left of my right arm socket here—"

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka waved him off, "Close enough. I thought it would be obvious enough to the _Big Star_ to figure out what's going on—like maybe everything with this movie is going wrong and that might—just _might_­—have something to do with Anno not having the Script of Longinus anymore."

"What?" Shinji felt something dark and terrifying jerk inside him as he abruptly finished sitting up all the way. "He doesn't have it anymore? How do you know?"

"Dummkopf!" she swatted at his head, and then again at his upraised hands and the annoying distress sound he produced, "Haven't you noticed Anno listlessly wandering around the set for the past three hours incoherently muttering, 'Where is it? I've lost the script, I've lost the script'?"

Shinji rubbed at his dummkopf. "Oh, yeah ..."

There was a throbbing Asuka-sized hand print pulsing on the top of it.

Asuka smiled with a smug expression as she looked down at him. "Fortunately for us, _I'm_ the only one who knows where it actually is."

"You do?"^2 Rei and Shinji said at the same time. Shinji looked over at Rei, then back at Asuka.

"That's right," Asuka crossed her arms and looked up and off, "Thanks to my dazzling intellect, we may be able to salvage this train wreck of a fanfiction yet."

Shinji felt suspicious. "But how do you know where it's at?"

"Simple," she said, "I asked." She inclined her chin heavenwards. "Could you repeat it one more time for the less intellectually gifted?"  
_"It's with Gendo Ikari, in his office," came the glum, heavenly confirmation_.

Shinji felt something die inside of his chest. And it felt as though it had previously been an important organ.

The floor was promptly within his reach again.

"Thank you," Asuka said upwards, primly, "You know, you should really stick around. You come in handy every once in a while."

_"Umm ... I'm always here."_

"Oh, that's nice—" Asuka froze, "Hey, wait a second! I just went to the bathroom a few minutes ago!"

_"Don't worry—I didn't peek—"_

"Oh, right," Asuka exclaimed, "I bet you just preoccupied yourself with something else—like maybe your Asuka doll collection!"

Rei quietly cleared her throat.

"Anyway," Asuka bit out, "We need to sneak in and get that script back before anyone notices that we're ... gone ... oh, great. Here we go again."

"Father—mustn't run away—mustn't run—mustn't—" Shinji was murmuring over and over to himself from his ground-borne fetal position.

"Which way, Wonder Girl?" Asuka asked wearily.

Shinji found himself too preoccupied to protest when she grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him behind her.

Rei pointed and all three/two-and-a-half of them started in that direction.

--

_Why does she have to smell so good?_

"But I still don't know—" Asuka said uncertainly. "Would you add it or ... maybe ... Well, let's start over. If the First and Third Children, aka the Wonder Duo, got together—eww—and had children—double eww—what would that make the child of the Children?"

Shinji involuntarily shifted a little and nearly lost his precarious perch over Asuka's shoulders from which she was carrying was precarious for a number of reasons, but the most prominent one (one that was even able to peek through his admittedly jumbled thoughts) was the precarious proximity of his hands to certain Asuka phenomena—more specifically, her two phenomena that resided below her neck where his hands were just within—

"Mmurph—" he muttered as Asuka continued rambling about offspring mathematics, proving sufficient to jar his thoughts from provocative bodily geographies, "Children—Parents—oh, God—_Father!_—"

Asuka let out a sigh, but continued as if he hadn't spoken. "If you would add it, it would turn out to be the Fourth child, but—Hey. Wonder Girl. What's your opinion on Shinji's numerical value? Would he be counted as a positive or negative entity?"

Rei paused for a moment, ignoring her and staring down at the hallway where it turned to the right up ahead of them.

"Someone is coming," Rei said quietly.

"What?" Asuka said, peering ahead and letting go of Shinji. "Who?"

His descent quickly escalated from sliding to plummeting off of Asuka and back to the cold and very flat, very hard floor. His throat involuntarily produced a sound that probably verged on pathetic, but his attention quickly shifted from his contemplations on the _Ways_ in which his life was a miserable experience to the _Source_ that ensured it.

"Father—" he said, "It's my father—"

"What?!" Asuka whisper-exclaimed. "How would you know?"

Shinji was spared the effort and traumatic experience of trying to explain the Gendo radar he'd developed.

"_It is indeed one Gendo Ikari,_" _said a heavenly voice._

"'It is indeed?' What are you, reading subtitles?" Asuka irritably snapped heavenwards, but she was paying more heed to her two companions and their lack of reaction, "Why are you two doing just standing—laying there? Quick, hide!"

She proceeded to spin frantically around the rather unfavorable-for-hiding-hallway with a handful of Shinji's collar in one hand. He made pathetic sounds and motions as she turned furious circles around him. And he, consequently and unfortunately, turned furious circles as well.

Rei pressed the button to the hall's solitary door, which she was standing beside. "There seems to be a closet here," she said as it opened.

"Oh, great," Asuka said as she spun Shinji that way and dragged him towards it, "Look, I found a closet. Quick, stop gawking and get inside Wonder Girl."

They did just that, ingressing into what turned out to be an excessively dim, excessively cramped little cubicle that had excessive claustrophobia written all over—

"WAIT!" Shinji shouted as he turned and tried to leap up, his arm reaching for Asuka where she was already shutting the closet's solitary— "No! I can't—"

But then Asuka was on top of him, trying to push him back away from the door controls while simultaneously pressing her hand against his mouth and doing her best to avoid his outstretched arms that were flailing in the general direction of the controls.

"Shh! Shut up!" she whispered frantically into his ear, "He'll hear! ... Please?"

But polite requests became quite unnecessary at this point, as Shinji felt himself becoming lightheaded under the decrease in oxygen Asuka's hand was perpetrating, coupled with the stringent amounts of oxygen that the anxiety of the situation was requiring. Not to mention that infuriating smell that was all but assaulting his helpless scent sensors—and he and Asuka touching in far too many places—and her soft hand on his lips and—

"Murmph," he murmured, sinking back onto his knees as reality unfocused itself.

However, the following loss of direct contact with her hand unfortunately brought it back. That and the sight of Asuka looking over her shoulder at the door, her face a dim outline in the gloom, her profile craning and urgent, that feeling deep and warm and stirring, and—

The footsteps from the outside hall were now audibly nearing them.

Closer, and closer, and—Were they slowing?—and—

Was that someone whistling "Fly Me to the Moon" outside? And—

c_lick_

Then the steps and the whistling lost their hesitation and continued on—

"WIENER SCHNITZEL!" Asuka swore as she leaped for the door controls and pounded on them, but to no avail. A red icon blinked and the door didn't move.

"No! No, no, no!" she cried, pounding her fists on the door to the rhythm of her cries.

"It seems that we're locked in," Rei said.

"No, kidding!" Asuka sank to her knees, about as close to honest weeping as a teenage girl could get. "You dummkopfs, why didn't you see this coming? If he has the script, he can see everything we do! Everything!"

"But—" Shinji murmured, doing his best to keep the hysterical fear down in his stomach, where it was threatening to forcefully elevate itself. Clawing—clawing at the bottom of everything— "We're stuck then? We can't get out?"

"Why?" Asuka sobbed, turning around on her knees and half heartedly throwing her hands at him, "Why do you have to be so completely useless _all_ of the time?"

"Trapped—" Shinji whispered to the beating of Asuka's hands on his chest, "Closing in—" —whispered to the beating of his heart inside his chest, his chest that was collapsing.

Everything was pressing down into him, overwhelming the overwhelming fear that was screaming and frantically fighting to get out—

During his subsequent and quite involuntary excursion to the floor, where he writhed and sobbed in the dim light, some nearly unconscious part of him that was always keeping track of Asuka kept track of Asuka.

She facilitated mostly pulling herself together by sniffing, whipping at her nose and eyes, and then gingerly getting to her feet. There was something of a hopeful smile on her face. "Don't worry ..." she whispered, her voice growing stronger, "Don't worry, it's okay. We're going to be fine ... because I'm smart and independent enough to get us out of this, and I'm—Hey! You! Up there! We need your help!"

For a moment all three of them grew still as they looked up to the ceiling. But the expected prompt answer didn't promptly come, and the seconds began to drag into much larger units of time.

"Hey! YOU!" Asuka cupped her hands, as if that would help. "Are you listening?"

But there was no response.

"Ah, great!" Asuka threw down her hands. "That's it, then. We're all going to—"

"—DIE!" Shinji finished, following his adrenaline and madly scrambling to his feet. "We've gotta—I've gotta get out of here! There has to be—something—" he muttered, nearly incoherently even to himself as he tore into the closet's assorted cleaning supplies.

"Unfamiliar ceiling," Shinji tore his eyes down as he worked, "Unfamiliar walls—" and down further, "Unfamiliar floor—GAH!

"Coffin—crypt—cave—submarine—" he involuntarily chanted under his breath as his hands failed to produce anything above the usefulness of a mop—useful relative to the situation anyway. "My father has buried me alive! My father has—Wait! Oh, my God, wait a second!" There was a sudden and heady pounding in his chest. "Chuck! Chuck will save us!"

Shinji whipped out his phone.

Asuka was regarding him with a small, sad sort of expression.

"Wait—What?" Shinji screamed. "No—no—No—NO RECEPTION! AAAH!"

"Sometimes ..." Asuka murmured to herself as she watched him madly scamper around each of the closet's corners, waving his phone in the air, pausing to check the signal, giving his rehearsed _End of Evangelion_ scream, and then repeating the process.

"Quick—help me build a—a tower! Yeah, a tower! Or maybe some other phallic shaped symbol of Freudian significance that we can climb onto—Oh, where's Anno when you need him?" Shinji was foaming as he frantically herded all of the closet's larger items with his free arm into one corner. "There!" he cried upon completion, and then did his best to crawl to the top of it, even as a large percentage of it fell apart underneath his feet. Grabbing a handhold of the paneled ceiling, he jammed his phone up through the top of them.

Even Rei seemed to hold her breath (or maybe she just never breathed at all) as there was silence and Shinji peered up into the darkness at the reception. This time, however, there was no overt confirmation of success or failure. Shinji just stood/hung there, remaining very still until he finally whispered,

"I'm in a closet ..."

Asuka crossed her arms and leaned back against one of the walls. "This isn't the only closet he needs to come out of," she muttered.

"I'm in a closet ..." Shinji said, a little more frantically. "I'm in a closet—I ... I can't breathe!" He gasped, clutching at his throat as he half scrambled, half fell back to the ground.

"So ..." Asuka looked over at Rei casually, "What do you do for fun anyway, Wonder Girl?"

Shinji was running in circles, trying to locate the coordinates with the best "—Air! I need air, I'm suffocating!"

"I mean ..." Asuka continued, ignoring him, "You never come out of that run down trailer of yours. What do you do all the time?"

Rei looked at her blankly. "Write Asuka and Shinji fanfiction." She said it as if it were difficult to contemplate anything else one could possibly do with free time.

Asuka glared up at heaven. "Sick. You're sick. Sick and twisted."

Why weren't they _listening _to him? For Sigmund's sakes, he was S-U-F-F-O-C-A-T-I-N-G.

"Air, I need air! I need—" He cried, throwing his arms up at them. He suddenly spied Asuka looking at him, Asuka and her slightly parted lips and— "Air! You have air! Give it to—"

And then base, completely animalistic instincts took over and he slammed his mouth into her remarkably surprised expression.

Suddenly there were colors. All sorts of colors. And heat, and fuzziness, and birds singing, and bees buzzing, and honey being produced and reproduced, and all sorts of other oddly enjoyable phenomena. But above all there was that wet, sultry, glorious friction. Time, there was also time. And her lips, and that smell, and—

Shinji found himself staggering backwards, looking around in horror as he gasped. "What—what just happened?"

Rei didn't verbally answer, and the '9.8' sign she was holding up wasn't exactly a lot of help either.

Asuka was the epitome of pleasantly dazed.

He was gasping. "I didn't ... I mean—" Shinji didn't know what he meant, "That was ... sorry. Sorry about that. I almost lost my cool there. But that was completely, um, professional. Yeah, completely professional and completely necessary."

Rei looked smugly unconvinced. If Rei was capable of looking like anything. And Asuka had progressed from dazed to dreamy, as she listlessly stared up at the ceiling with a slight smile on her lips.

"Yeah," he rambled on, "Completely necessary. After all, air is one of the necessary, uh, necessary parts of survival. And since we're in a survival situation, we need to start thinking about those things. So, uh, there's air. That's one. Then there's food. And uh ... oh yeah, shelter. We're good on that one ... well, actually that's kinda our problem, but ... there's another one, isn't there?"

Rei merely stared back at him.

"I, uh," Shinji scratched at his head, trying to _think_. "There's another one, I know it! It's um ... well, okay. Start over. In order to survive, people need air, food ... uh, shelter, and ... uh ..."

"Reproduction ..." Asuka murmured dreamily.

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Shinji said, then remembered himself, "No! That's not ..." he scratched at the back of his head again, "Well, maybe I guess it does depend on how long term you want to ... pursue ..." Asuka's eyes finally floated down to his, which was guaranteed to make everything hot and uncomfortable again.

Shinji gulped.

"—Survival ..."

Rei gave a happy little sigh.

--

Things didn't progress all that favorably from there. For his part, Shinji thought that the others turned out to be more or less the antithesis of helpful. Rei was too busy doing nothing, aka being Rei—although there was a maddeningly intangible bit to her that he would've bet his copy of _Die Traumdeutung_ resembled being content. Or at least what a normal human being would be like when content. And Rei content over anything to do with him and Asuka—as in him and Asuka _together—_freaked him out, even more than the whole touching/seeing Rei naked while she was a pseudo clone of his mom did. Well, the two instances were actually probably somewhere close to tying, but still—

And then there was Asuka, or rather there really wasn't Asuka. For the remainder of their situation she spent it moonily murmuring about baby names ... babies that they would presumably be producing. Together.

Be producing TO-GETH-ER!

Not that even the best of Shinji's admittedly well honed streaks of denial could deny that the idea of the initiation of such said producing seemed all that off putting ... in a manner of speaking ...

Things might have gotten even worse if their salvation hadn't appeared quite abruptly, even anticlimactically. Not that Shinji was particularly unfamiliar with that adjective.

_"What are you guys doing in there?" asked a heavenly voice._

"Hey, is that you?" Shinji asked upwards, but turned to glare at Asuka, who was still in the midst of the dilemma of deciding—

"—that won't work, if the first one is a boy," she murmured, heedless of reality in general, "But would it really be all that cheesy to go with Shinji Jr? After all—"

"Asuka!" Shinji shouted, horrified. "Snap out of it!"

He slapped her.

Mrs. Ikari evidently filed for a divorce in record time as her expression did indeed snap out and into a furious expression, followed by a furious fist that left a furiously throbbing sensation in his jaw.

"And just what the heck was that for?" she demanded.

"I just—" Shinji murmured as he clutched at his imploding jaw and teetered on his heels, "... I ... We're saved."

And then gravity "graciously" eased him backwards down to the ground.

It was some time before he was capable of being moved, with Asuka once again donning the honors rather noisily.

--

Shinji missed most of this, however, as he regained consciousness only just before they reached the door to Gendo's office.

There was some teetering at the threshold by Asuka, but Rei wordlessly entered and they followed, rather anticlimactically, again, and fanned out, examining it.

"It's ..." Shinji whispered, looking around, "... Just an office."

"What are you, _stupid_?" Asuka asked as she assumed a superior tone, "Of course it's an office. What did you expect?"

"... Torture devices?" he murmured, looking up perplexed at a picture of a sunny river hanging on the wall.

"I still don't get it," Asuka said, looking sideways at Rei, who was quietly looking around. "Okay, let's assume for the sake of the argument the completely ridiculous idea of me and the human hedgehog getting together, but ... I don't get it. What's it to you? What do you get out of it?"

"I don't understand," Rei said quietly.

"I mean ..." Asuka struggled for a moment, "Why do you like it so much?"

Rei looked at her. "For the same reason that many people enjoy love hate relationships."

Asuka looked taken a little aback. "And why is that?"

"In such situations, where the two characters are presented to be in initial conflict with each other, it draws out the elements of what attracts them." Rei paused. "With so many obstacles put in the way of their relationship forming, it creates a greater sense of satisfaction when it does. It also reinforces romantic notions that love can conquer anything."

Asuka stared at her.

"And there's ..." Rei said slowly, "A sort of power in acknowledging a force above the characters. Something that makes their relationship inevitable, no matter how much they try to resist. And once it comes to it ... after everything that has happened ... there's something powerful in the characters saying 'I choose you' ... to each other. There's ... something powerful about that ultimate submission."

Shinji turned his stare over at Asuka, who was looking at the ground with a frown, her mouth moving softly as if she was working through something, through some grand, startling revelation that was—

Asuka abruptly looked up and burst out laughing.

"Ah, that's just a load of strudel!" She craned her neck up heavenwards. "And what's your theory, huh? How come you weren't here when we needed you?"

_"Me?" asked a heavenly voice, somewhat defensively. "I had to get up for a minute. Geez, I just wanted to get a Kit Kat bar."_

Asuka glared a deadpan expression. "Oh, give me a break."

Rei was seated at a drum set.

_dedum chhhh_

Shinji didn't move as the canned audience applause slowly receded. He felt his fists slowly clenching and unclenching; he threw them down on the edge of the desk in irritation.

Behind him, Asuka was still chatting animatedly about the absurdity of them ever getting together. Or really, just the absurdity surrounding him in general.

Shinji stared down at his father's stress ball, which had carelessly been left at a lopsided angle. The eyes weren't quit at the proper alignment to be staring back up at his.

He tried laughing, but ended up with a forced sort of result. A shaky kind of result. "I ... I really should talk to Chuck about this merchandising thing. It's really getting out of hand."

"Hmm?" Asuka asked behind him, presumably looking over at him. "What did you say?"

"I said it's not fair," he murmured, almost too quiet for even himself to hear.

There was a dead sort of silence behind him. The kind that made his back crawl.

"Shinji ..." It was Asuka's voice, whispered in a quiet sort of question.

"I said it's not fair!" he shouted as he slammed his hands on the desk.

The stress ball was jostled slightly, turning it's face off to the side.

"I said it's not fair!" he wretched his arm across the surface, throwing the stress ball off onto an adjacent bureau, "It's not fair, It's not fair, It's not fair!"

He shoved the computer monitor off to the floor, where it crunched and hissed, and then tore the keyboard away and brought it down again and again at the stress ball.

But long before his arms began to burn and ache, and certainly long afterwards, when everything was still and stinging, nothing changed. Nothing was better. Nothing ever was.

He stood panting,

staring down at the shattered plastic at his feet,

not brave enough to look up to the others and their own stares.

--

**AN: **Wow. This is like my worst update time ever (over four months). Sorry for the outside chance anyone was really looking forward to this. But yeah, this time this is probably really the last part. Thanks everyone for reading; hope y'all like it.


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